The high cost of manually producing background characters creates a demand for a
way to automatically generate plausible behaviors. These background extras need to
behave in a manner that is believable such that they do not distract the focus of the
audience from the primary action occurring in the scene....
Massively multiplayer role-playing games (MMORPG) are becoming a popular leisure activity world-wide. MMORPG players have created a new kind of market, one for virtual possessions. Some players will buy and sell virtual goods for real-world money. Many game developers oppose this real-market trade because it threatens the control of their...
Dental disease is a very prevalent and costly disease in which the symptoms, not the disease, are currently being treated. The disease is caused by pathogenic oral bacteria, many of which are a part of the Mutans Streptococci. The objective of this thesis was to find a natural substance that...
Two strains of Escherichia coli were studied to determine the effect of constitutive expression of the SOS DNA damage repair response on the activity of ribonucleotide reductase. Activity of the reductase and cellular deoxynucleoside triphosphate (dNTP) pools were both determined before and after exposure of the cells to ultraviolet radiation....
This paper addresses how the implementation of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has affected the use of Information Technology (IT) in Mexico. In order to answer this question this thesis analyzes the direct and indirect effects of NAFTA on Mexico’s economic and regulatory environment, and how this influences the...
The LIGO interferometers have reached their designed sensitivity level which is greater than any other interferometer ever built. At this point, it is important to have a proper understanding of small perturbations that might still exist (until now these issues did not come to the forefront because other more critical...
The computer game industry continues to progress toward realistic-looking character motion. However, even in state-of-the-art games, the use of motion capture data in character animation may result in errors such as “foot slipping,” where the feet do not match up with the floor properly during translation. Various algorithms have been...
High-throughput culturing (HTC) consisting of extinction culturing in autoclaved seawater has led to the isolation and characterization of many novel strains of oligotrophic marine bacteria. Strain HTCC 2207 was isolated from the Oregon coast by the HTC method. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequence showed that this strain...
Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men, but rates around the world vary greatly. Americans have the highest incidence rates in the world, 4 to 5 times those of Spain. The hypothesis of this thesis was that vitamin D metabolism is a factor in prostate cancer development...
Science is difficult for even its researchers to understand. Science journalists must understand scientific discoveries well enough to write clear, accurate explanations of scientific discoveries for laypeople. A sense of ethical judgment will help journalists ensure that their accounts are reliable and appropriate. Responsible science journalists will maintain a working...
This thesis explores a three month period that I spent abroad working in medical clinics and hospitals in Ecuador. My work was conducted in three distinct areas: the urban landscape of Quito, Ecuador’s capital; Puyo, a small town bordering the Amazonian rainforest; and a small community located in the heart...
This thesis describes the implementation of an interface for querying established correspondences between anatomical structures across species. I was the main developer of this query engine, called the Comparative Anatomy Information System. My work involved developing methods to query the knowledge base, perform the specified comparison, display the anatomical hierarchies...
Wind energy is a cornerstone to the world of renewables. It is widely used in many parts of the world as a clean and effective form of power generation. However, wind power has a number of drawbacks, which limits its use in many regions. Solar power has been used not...
In order to combine my passion for creativity, my love for children, and my engineering background, I decided to create a very personalized thesis project. Princess Catie Goes to College is a children’s book about a young girl whose older sister leaves for college. I chose to write about this...
America’s rural Hispanic population is growing at an unprecedented rate. Many of the Hispanic people that are settling in rural communities are immigrants or first generation Americans. If changes to current healthcare systems are required to accommodate the health needs of this growing, low-income rural population they have not been...
The North Pacific subtropical gyre (NPSG), once considered to be a biological desert due to low primary production (PP) and its associated variability, has been found more productive and variable than previously thought. The environmental conditions controlling this relatively high PP variability are yet to be elucidated, despite important implications...
Four studies were conducted on late-summer diet quality and quantity of cattle (Bos taurus), mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus hemionus), and elk (Cervus elaphus) in response to prior grazing by cattle and elk on mixed-conifer rangelands and on related research techniques. In our first study we assessed a photographic technique to...
Experiments were conducted to characterize the nongenomic effects of
progesterone (P4) on binding of oxytocin (OT) to the ovine oxytocin
receptor (OTR) and signal transduction. The dose-response relationship of
P4 to OT binding to the OTR in endometrium was examined. Progesterone
interfered with the binding of OT to the OTR...
A need exists to develop a non-destructive testing technique that can identify
the formation and propagation of diagonal tension cracks in conventionally
steel reinforced concrete deck girder (RCDG) highway bridges in the State of
Oregon. Such a technique could be included into a structural health
monitoring (SHM) system installed on...
As broadband Internet becomes widely available, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) applications over the Internet are becoming increasingly popular. Such an example is a video multicast application in which, one source streams a video to a large number of destination nodes through an overlay multicast tree consisting of peers.
These overlay multicast-based applications,...